LEWISTON – Police searched a patch of woods along outer Lisbon Street Tuesday night after a battered and bleeding woman was reportedly dragged into the trees about 9:30 p.m.
After two hours of searching, police found the woman and a man accused of beating her after the pair were dropped off by a cab at Crowley and South Lisbon roads.
Henry Mayer, 27, of Lewiston, was charged with domestic assault. The woman was being examined by paramedics early Wednesday morning. The extent of her injuries was not immediately known.
For more than two hours, police with a tracking dog and heat-sensing cameras searched the woods next to the Travel Inn Motel.
Witnesses told police a man had carried a screaming woman into the woods after the pair scuffled in the corner of the parking lot. One caller reported the woman appeared to have suffered a serious head injury.
After 90 minutes of searching, neither the woman nor the man was found. A man claiming to have witnessed the entire ordeal returned to the scene about 9:45 p.m. and spoke to police about the incident.
That man led police to a pickup truck parked at the Chalet Motel, two miles away. Blood was reportedly found inside the vehicle.
It was believed that the man who spoke with police had been driving the truck when the confrontation unfolded at the Travel Inn. He was taken to the police station for questioning.
Meanwhile, police not involved in the action on outer Lisbon Street were searching a downtown apartment and bars for a suspect and victim. Officers went to Orange Street where Mayer was said to live. The pair was not found.
Other officers were going from bar to bar, showing photographs to bar workers and patrons as the hunt continued. Police dispatchers checked with cab companies to learn whether anyone had called for a taxi ride to or from the Travel Inn.
It was information from one of those cab companies that led to Mayer’s arrest, police said.
On outer Lisbon Street, police combing through the woods contended with hills, streams and dense fog as they searched. A fireman atop a ladder truck scanned the woods with a digital camera, seeking heat from blood or a victim.
A Travel Inn employee said the victim, a woman said to be in her mid-20s, was not an occupant at the motel. He told police he saw the woman outside a pickup truck, on the ground and bleeding while a man hovered over her and tried to get her to her feet.
Moments later, the couple disappeared into the woods. That witness told police the woman stopped screaming as she was carried toward the trees.
With no sign of the man or woman, police began searching elsewhere for the pair. At about 11:45 p.m., the man was found at Crowley Road and South Lisbon Road.
An Androscoggin County sheriff’s deputy and a Lisbon police officer also assisted at the scene of the search. In all, more than a dozen police officers, paramedics and firefighters were involved.
“The report was of a woman being badly beaten and being dragged into the woods,” said Lewiston police Sgt. David St. Pierre. “You never know what you’re going to find in a situation like that. We scoured the area and used all the resources available to us.”
Mayer was being booked at the Androscoggin County Jail early Wednesday morning.
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